Updating your WordPress blog for improved functionality & security

Have you ever seen this little yellow notice in your WordPress blog admin area?

“WordPress X.X.X is available!” The message means that you don’t have the newest version of the blog platform. If you didn’t install the blog yourself, you should hold off on hitting the “Please update now” link unless you know what you’re doing.

So what should I do?

Give Vision Design a call if there is an update available for your blog.

1. First, we’ll find out if it’s a critical update
   Often, the WordPress upgrade introduces new features and improves functionality. Occasionally, the new version will fix a security vulnerability and should be completed ASAP.
2. Next, we’ll research and test the new version
   Before we update the software, we always find out if it’s compatible with the plugins, themes and customizations we’ve added to your blog. If your current theme or plugin isn’t compatible, it’s often best to wait a few weeks to allow the theme and plugin authors to provide their own updated, compatible version. Otherwise, we can usually find or formulate a patch to fix the issues.
3. Time to schedule the update
   The update will take 15 minutes to an hour, during which time your blog will be unavailable. If your blog is located in a subdirectory of your website (like www.website.com/blog), the rest of your site will operate normally. If your site is built entirely on WordPress, the whole site will be down for a short while. In case we run into complications, we always make a backup first of your database and blog folder.

After I update, what will improve?

If you upgrade to WordPress 2.9

• You can now paste in a video URL from YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv to start and the video will then properly embed itself right in the post with out any special code.
• If a post or comment is deleted, it will go into the Trash Can. If you decide the post or comment should not have been deleted, you can restore the posts or comments from the trash.
• Built in image editing. If you don’t have an image editor, you can do some of the most basic needed functions right in WordPress such as crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale.

WordPress 2.9.2

• A security fix was issued after an exploit was found in the new Trash Can feature. An untrusted user with posting privileges could see posts in the Trash Can from other users that had been set to Private View only. This upgrade fixes the security issue.

All WordPress updates

• Most WordPress updates also include improvements to speed, responsiveness and stability.